The disaster on the A14 in Bologna: a missed multidisciplinary approach to road safety

Explosion in Bologna, on the urban stretch of the A14 motorway. A tanker crashes violently on a truck with a trailer that caught fire immediately. After four minutes, a devastating explosion causes the bridge to collapse. In this accident, a multidisciplinary approach would have avoided structural damage to the viaduct and prevented 145 victims of wounded burns. The incident was filmed by the motorway cameras, but the attention of the traffic authorities is only for the initial collision, the tanker truck that gave the first truck carrying solvent barrels, and that immediately caught fire. Part of the pavement of the engineering structure - a road with two lanes and a paved safety band - collapsed and under the vehicles were crushed and others caught fire. In four minutes many drivers on the highway are put in safe positions, but a multidisciplinary and remote technical intervention, thanks to improvements in new technologies for road safety - could have led to a different conclusion and limit the damage caused by the accident